Dream Chaser spaceship seems on a glide path to landing in Alabama

Huntsville is "the only community" where Colorado space company Sierra Nevada is planning to land its Dream Chaser spaceship anytime soon, company officials said Thursday.

To build on that commitment, city leaders took new steps Thursday to develop a market for the company's mini-space shuttle that flies to orbit atop an Alabama rocket and lands on a runway like an airplane. They held a workshop in Huntsville on the space marketplace of tomorrow that drew 70 people from business, government and academia.

Dream Chaser's path from test vehicle to space ship got a major boost in January when NASA committed to buy six supply missions to the International Space Station using the craft. But Huntsville was working with Sierra Nevada to support Dream Chaser since the Paris Air Show of 2015.

"There was a leap of faith on the Huntsville side that we would be a company that could get this vehicle built and start servicing the space station...," Sierra Nevada Vice President John Roth said Thursday. "Yes, we have been approached by other airports for ventures. We're not moving forward at this time with any of those. Right now, Huntsville is the only community we're moving forward with a (landing) license on."

A preliminary local study identified four hurdles to landing Dream Chaser at the Huntsville International Airport: required licenses for the craft and airport, environmental impact approval, Federal Aviation Administration approval of the landing path and possible runway damage.

"We've found nothing that would indicate those items are not satisfactory for going forward," Huntsville International Airport Director of Operations Kevin Vandeberg said.

When Sierra Nevada and Huntsville announced their partnership at the Paris Air Show last year, the company promised to help the city develop a market for Dream Chaser.

"That's what today was about," Roth said of the session at the Chamber of Commerce featuring political leaders, Alabama universities, NASA, and technology companies like Dynetics, CFDRC and RadioBro.

The session was to "share the capabilities of the vehicle and of our space community," chamber Vice President Lucia Cape said.

Cape and Roth said the day went well. Roth found "more research (in Huntsville) than I was aware of" and praised the diversity of aerospace work in the city.

Dream Chaser will launch into orbit atop an Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance in Decatur. It must be ready to fly in 2019, Roth said, but NASA may not order its first mission until 2020 or later.